Movies provide Maine woman with extra work

'Labor Day' among Sweeney's latest projects

ELIOT, Maine — Anne Sweeney has a busy life as photographer, television announcer and film extra. This year alone, she has been on the sets of "Labor Day" with Josh Brolin and Kate Winslet, and "The Judge" with Robert Downey Jr. and Robert Duvall.

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By RALPH MORANG

seacoastonline.com

By RALPH MORANG

Posted Feb. 15, 2014 at 2:00 AM

By RALPH MORANG

Posted Feb. 15, 2014 at 2:00 AM

» Social News

ELIOT, Maine — Anne Sweeney has a busy life as photographer, television announcer and film extra. This year alone, she has been on the sets of "Labor Day" with Josh Brolin and Kate Winslet, and "The Judge" with Robert Downey Jr. and Robert Duvall.

It all began at a small radio station on Cape Cod. Anne Williams, as she was known then, was a DJ who introduced New Age music to the Cape and then moved on to WJIB radio in Cambridge, Mass.

"I was the first female announcer there," she said.

Part of her job was producing shows at the Berklee Performance Center, where she met Yanni, the Greek-born musician and composer. Connections were made, and Sweeney was asked to provide commentary about Yanni during pledge breaks at WGBH public television in Boston during the showing of "Yanni at the Acropolis" in 1993. She hosted more pledge breaks, and 20 years on, records pledge breaks for WGBH and for the national PBS, sometimes going as far as San Diego.

Her first job as "background," or a film extra, was in "Wind," a film directed by Carroll Ballard and released in 1992.

Filming took place in Newport, R.I. "We were outside in the rain for 12 hours." Sweeney and the other 200 background extras were playing spectators during an America's Cup sailing race. "We were fodder," cheering over and over.

She played a shopper in 2009's "Paul Bart Mall Cop." The "shoppers" were given empty shopping bags to carry while star Kevin James, playing a mall security officer, whizzed by on a Segway scooter on a set in Woburn, Mass.

Sweeney has been with Boston Casting for seven or eight years and is a member of the actors union, SAG-AFTRA. She said extras do not have to be in the union, but the pay is better. "And you get to get in the lunch line first," she said.

The day rate for union extras is $140, she said. Non-union extras receive $100 to $120. Sweeney said there is additional pay for appointments like costume fittings.

"Labor Day," directed by Jason Reitman, is in theaters now. Kate Winslet plays a reclusive woman with a young son living in a small New Hampshire town in 1987. An escaped prisoner, played by Josh Brolin, forces himself into their home to hide during Labor Day weekend. The story comes from a book by Joyce Maynard, who grew up in Durham. Maynard insisted Reitman shoot in New England. But because Massachusetts has more favorable financial incentives for shooting films than New Hampshire, the production was shot in Shelburne Falls, Mass.

Boston Casting sends out notices that might just say "Jason Reitman Project" and asks for certain types of extras. Sweeney responded and found herself playing a prosecutor in a courtroom scene with Brolin next to her in handcuffs. The set was an unused courthouse in Worcester. Sweeney did not know until she saw the film last week that, unfortunately, the scene was cut. Just as well, as Sweeney said her 1987-era costume was "hideous."

For "The Judge," directed by David Dobkin, Sweeney was again an extra in a courtroom, one of 68 people. According to a listing in IMDb.com, Robert Downey Jr. plays a lawyer who returns to his hometown where his father, played by Robert Duval, is a judge suspected of murder.

Sweeney plays a reporter in the courtroom scene. She had read for the part of the jury foreman ("They thought I could look like a stern schoolteacher"), but the part went to a man. The set was built in a warehouse in Dedham, Mass. Sweeney was impressed with the concept of the film.

"It's going to be huge," she said.

Sweeney said she can find herself in hair and makeup on a set at 6 a.m. and wait and work and wait until 7 p.m. But she says it's worth it.

"You can pick and choose your projects," she said. "Thing is, you don't get much notice."

Between trips to film sets and public television stations, Sweeney is a wedding and portrait photographer. She and her husband, Jon, a retired television producer and writer and now a traditional healer, moved to Eliot from Duxbury, Mass., almost seven years ago. They said they looked all over the country from Santa Fe to Vermont. Someone suggested Maine.

"It's too far and too cold," she said. But they are now in a home off Goodwin Road with two dogs and a Cherokee healing circle, close to the amenities of the Seacoast and about an hour away from the film business.